Planning Tips to Achieve Your Dream Life

December 30, 2016

Life goes by fast when you’re a mom. Make the best use of your time with these planning tips to help you achieve the life you dream of for you and your family. Start off by comparing the best planners on the market and see which tool can help you on your journey to your dream life.

Note: This post contains affiliate links as indicated by an asterisk. Purchases from these links provides a small commission to me at no extra cost to you.

With an extensive to-do list and a chronic illness, it’s easy for me to get overwhelmed by all I want to get done. In the past few years, I’ve found that investing the time to document my goals and plan my days has helped me increase my productivity and start achieving the life I’ve dreamed of.

I’ll admit I’m a planner junkie. I can’t function without my planner. Between brain fog from Rheumatoid Arthritis, 3 kids schedules to juggle and a mind that races all day long with ideas for my family, home and blog, I rely on my planners and bullet journals to corral the chaos so I can get things done.

Here are some of my favorite planning tips, resources and articles I’ve written to help you on your journey to achieving your dream life too.

What are your goals? What does your dream life look like? What is your biggest struggle in achieving your goals? What has been your biggest accomplishment so far? Tell me how I can help you on your journey to achieve your dream life.

My Favorite Planning Tools

I’m currently using Powersheets intentional goal planner to cultivate and pinpoint the goals most important to me in this season of life. The Powersheets helps me identify my goals, turn them into an action plan to get it done and encourages me to fit them into my current commitments so I don’t lose sight of them.

Once the action plan is identified, I schedule my tasks to get it done into my Daily Simplified Planner. This is a winning combination, both products encourage and inspire me to focus what really matters in my life, give myself grace when things don’t go perfectly, to make progress little by little and to cherish the journey.

More Planner Reviews

Ultimate Planner Comparison – comparison of 11 of the most popular planners on the market and a FREE comparison chart to download to help you choose your perfect planner

Grace Not Perfection* by Emily Ley – a wonderful reminder to give ourselves grace in our busy lives and to shift our mindset to embrace the life we’ve been given rather than the relentless pursuit of unattainable perfection

Cultivate* by Lara Casey – an inspiring book encouraging us to cherish the season we’re in, from starting new and exciting projects to the messy middle while we work through our problems, it’s all part of the growing process as we cultivate the life we want.

Achieving your dream life takes planning, finding resources that keep you motivated along your journey and reviewing your goals to make sure you are still on track. You might think your dream life is beyond your reach but breaking down your goals into manageable pieces and celebrating your small victories along the way will help you see that your dream life is within your reach, it just takes hard work, dedication and a clear vision. I’ll be updating this page with more articles to help you along the way, so I hope you’ll check back with me and tell me how I can help you on your goals.

Comments

I was never curious about productivity and planning until I started blogging! It adds joy – but it also adds many things “to do” as well. I have never read Steven Covey’s 7 Habits and I’m going to go put that on my library list now!

I forgot to mention that I LOVE your new look on your blog – so clean & beautiful. I am so impressed by all that you’ve done with your blog this past year & how you keep learning new things and applying them – I had an objective last year to update my blogs & never found the time – they are pretty much the same as when I started them 10 years ago!! gulp

One specific question (in addition to how do you DO it all??) – your photos are gorgeous – do you take them yourself? Some – like the planner one here – are personal so it seems that you are taking them yourself, but they are also so beautiful and professional-looking! I just love the look and would love to know your secret 🙂

No, I did not take the photo in the main images myself (it’s on my bucket list to take such gorgeous photos). i bought a pack of stock photos from the incredibly talented Twigy Posts on Creative Market. It was perfect because it was a seaside pack that totally matched the color scheme and vibe I was going for. i just import the photo into PicMonkey and add the text as usual. I actually updated my blogging tips page yesterday for info about the theme and places where I get stock photos (you can get some for free by subscribing to their newsletters too which I totally recommend). Here’s the link if you want to check it out. https://momssmallvictories.com/blogging-tips-and-tricks-to-take-your-blog-to-the-next-level/

Great post, Tanya (you can see how far behind I am on everything by how long it took me to read this one!). Like you, I am a planning junkie and just finished my start-of-the-year process – revisiting my lifetime goals and setting objectives & measurable targets for this year. Here’s an article I recently wrote for ProHealth on my process (and how it applies when you are chronically ill):

As you know, I am also a big Covey fan and love that you described 7 Habits as life-changing. It was for me, too, when I read it about 25 years ago!

With all my planning, I am still feeling overwhelmed (and am still perpetually behind!). I will take a look at the resources you included here…though I suspect my main problem is simply that I am trying to do too much!

Great article Sue, I am still in the process of getting my 2017 goals onto paper and the complete capture list of all the ideas floating around my head. I just said that the other day too, in spite of my planner addiction, I am always behind too and often overwhelmed. I think I take on too much too. I used your index card idea to jot down my individual project ideas and monthly goals. I really need to stick to completing the card versus getting distracted by everything else that pops in my head.

WOW! For a fellow planner like me this dream post is just that, a dream! Thanks for sharing all of these resources. I’m definitely going to be researching them ALL! (come visit me, would love to see you there when I post about dreams later on today!)